"Is one comfort," said Eleyne on a day when he had baited them till they wept for rage and shame. "Is one comfort; if no gentlemen will come anigh this house, will no gentlewoman neither. They be all afeared o' thee. If we must dwell here forlorn, we are spared a step-dame. Is none would live thy cat and dog life."
"Sayst thou so? Sayst thou so, hussy?" roared the knight, and would have struck her; but his eye lighted on Calote,--he let drop his hand. "Sayst thou so?" he repeated more softly, and went out chuckling.
"Thou fool!" said Godiyeva to her sister. "What maggot hast thou put in 's head?"
'T was the day next after this one that Calote chose to tell them the tale of the Ploughman. She had been of three minds not to tell it at all; but then she called herself a coward. Of Richard she had never spoke, nor showed the horn, and she did not now. After supper she told her tale, and she said by way of a beginning:--
"This is the last tale I have to tell, mesdames. To-morrow,--or 't maybe the next day, for 't is a long tale,--I must give you thanks of your courtesy, and begone."
"Ah, stay, and tell them all again!" cried Custance. "We 've not been so merry since Godiyeva's lover flouted her."
"Peace!" said Eleyne, and Godiyeva's lovely face flamed red.
The old knight chuckled in the chimney corner. He did not snooze to-night, as was his wont; he sat a-blinking on Calote, and sipping his piment, slow. Calote crouched on a low stool, with her face to the fire.
"In a summer season when soft was the sun"--she began, and at the first she spoke hastily, and with a little quaver in her voice. She knew not how they might take this tale.
They took it for a jape, a jest; they laughed. Lady Mede and her sisours and summoners made them very merry. When Repentance called the Seven Sins to confession, and the tale was told of Glutton in the tavern, Sir Austin doubled him up with a loud guffaw and nigh fell into the fire. When Piers Ploughman put up his head, the damsels squealed for joy. When he, this same Piers, set the ladies of the Vision to sew sacking, and the Knight to keep the land freed of foes, Sir Austin's daughters held their sides, and rocked back and forth, the while mirthful tears fell down their faces.